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Andy Kaufman - Wikipedia. This article is about the entertainer.

For the former basketball player, see Andy Kaufmann. Andy Kaufman. Kaufman in the early 1. Born. Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman(1. January 1. 7, 1. 94. New York City, New York, U. S. Died. May 1. 6, 1. Los Angeles, California, U.

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S. Cause of death. Lung cancer. Resting place. Beth David Cemetery, Elmont, New York. Nationality. American.

Occupation. Actor, performance artist, comedian. Years active. 19. Television. As Latka Gravas in Taxi (1. Partner(s)Lynne Margulies (1. Children. 1Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman (January 1. May 1. 6, 1. 98. 4)[1] was an American comedian, actor, writer, performance artist and professional wrestler.

While often referred to as a comedian, Kaufman described himself instead as a "song and dance man."[2] He disdained telling jokes and engaging in comedy as it was traditionally understood, once saying in a rare introspective interview, "I am not a comic, I have never told a joke. The comedian's promise is that he will go out there and make you laugh with him. My only promise is that I will try to entertain you as best I can."[3]After working in small comedy clubs in the early 1.

Kaufman first came to the attention of a wider audience in 1. Saturday Night Live.

His Foreign Man character was the basis of his role as Latka Gravas on the hit television show Taxi, on which he appeared from 1. During this time, he continued to tour comedy clubs and theaters in a series of unique performance art / comedy shows, sometimes appearing as himself and sometimes as obnoxiously rude lounge singer. Tony Clifton.[5] He was also a frequent guest on sketch comedy and late- night talk shows, particularly Late Night with David Letterman.[5] In 1. Kaufman brought his professional wrestlingvillain act to Letterman's show with a staged encounter with Jerry "The King" Lawler of the Continental Wrestling Association (although the fact that the altercation was planned in advance was not publicly disclosed for over a decade). Kaufman died of lung cancer in 1. Kaufman faked his own death as a grand hoax.[5][7] His body of work maintains a cult following and he continues to be respected for his original material, unique performance style, and unflinching commitment to character.[5][8]Early life[edit]Kaufman was born on January 1. New York City, the oldest of three children.

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His mother was Janice (née Bernstein), a homemaker and former fashion model, and his father was Stanley Kaufman, a jewelry salesman.[9] Andy Kaufman, along with his younger brother and sister, grew up in a middle- class Jewish family in Great Neck, Long Island.[1. He began performing at children's birthday parties at age 9, playing records and showing cartoons.[1. Kaufman spent much of his youth writing poetry and stories, including an unpublished novel, The Hollering Mangoo, which he completed at age 1.

Following a visit to his school from Nigerian musician Babatunde Olatunji, Kaufman began playing the bongos.[1. After graduating from Great Neck North High School in 1. Kaufman took a year off before enrolling at the now defunct two- year Grahm Junior College,[1.

Boston,[1. 5] where he studied television production and starred in his own campus television show, Uncle Andy's Fun House.[4]He began performing at coffee houses and developing his act, as well as writing a one- man play, titled Gosh (later renamed God and published in 2. After graduating in 1. East Coast.[1. 6][1. Watch The Caretaker Download.

Foreign Man and Mighty Mouse[edit]Kaufman first caught major attention with a character known as Foreign Man, who spoke in a meek, high- pitched, heavy- accented voice and claimed to be from "Caspiar," a fictional island in the Caspian Sea.[1. It was as this character that Kaufman convinced the owner of the famed New York City comedy club The Improv, Budd Friedman, to allow him to perform onstage.[1.

As "Foreign Man," Kaufman would appear on the stage of comedy clubs, play a recording of the theme from the Mighty Mouse cartoon show while standing perfectly still, and lip- sync only the line "Here I come to save the day" with great enthusiasm.[2. He would proceed to tell a few (purposely poor) jokes and conclude his act with a series of celebrity impersonations, with the comedy arising from the character's obvious ineptitude at impersonation.

For example, in his fake accent Kaufman would say to the audience, "I would like to imitate Meester Carter, de president of de United States" and then, in exactly the same voice, say "Hello, I am Meester Carter, de president of de United States. T'ank you veddy much." At some point in the performance, usually when the audience was conditioned to Foreign Man's inability to perform a single convincing impression, Foreign Man would announce, "And now I would like to imitate the Elvis Presley," turn around, take off his jacket, slick his hair back, and launch into a rousing, hip- shaking, excellent rendition of Presley singing one of his hit songs. Like Presley, he would take off his leather jacket during the song and throw it into the audience, but unlike Presley, Foreign Man would immediately ask for it to be returned.

After the song's finale, he would take a simple bow and say in his Foreign Man voice, "T'ank you veddy much."[citation needed]Portions of Kaufman's Foreign Man act were broadcast in the first season of Saturday Night Live. The Mighty Mouse number was featured in the October 1. Elvis) were included in the November 8 broadcast that same year.[2. Arguably his best known act, Andy Kaufman's "Foreign Man" persona was later adapted as the "Latka Gravas" character for the ABC sitcom, Taxi. Though Kaufman's performances on the show were widely praised, even garnering him two Golden Globe Award nominations, Kaufman greatly disliked sitcoms and was unhappy about being so closely identified with Latka, which led him to clash frequently with the show's cast and crew. Kaufman first used his Foreign Man character in nightclubs in the early 1.

Elvis Presley imitation. The character was then changed into Latka Gravas for the ABC's Taxi sitcom, appearing in 7. Bob Zmuda confirms this: "They basically were buying Andy's Foreign Man character for the Taxi character Latka."[2. Kaufman's long- time manager, George Shapiro, encouraged him to take the gig. Kaufman disliked sitcoms and was not happy with the idea of being in one, but Shapiro convinced him that it would quickly lead to stardom, which would earn him money he could then put into his own act. Kaufman agreed to appear in 1. Kaufman's alter- ego Tony Clifton.

After Kaufman deliberately sabotaged Clifton's appearance on the show, however, this part of his contract was dropped.[6]His character was given multiple personality disorder, which allowed Kaufman to randomly portray other characters. In one episode of Taxi, Kaufman's character came down with a condition that made him act like Alex Reiger, the main character played by Judd Hirsch.

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Another such recurring character played by Kaufman was the womanizing Vic Ferrari.[2. Sam Simon, who early in his career was a writer and later showrunner for Taxi, stated in a 2. Marc Maron for the WTF podcast that the story of Kaufman having been generally disruptive on the show was "a complete fiction" largely created by Bob Zmuda. Simon maintained that Zmuda has a vested interest in promoting an out- of- control image of Kaufman.